The systems that have been developed in this field are mostly designed for tracking persons regarded as “frail”, typically elderly people living alone. Their function is to detect as early as possible any abnormal change in the activity of these persons so as to trigger, where necessary, the intervention of an emergency service, doctor or relative of the person.
Current known systems for remotely tracking a person in their house, use a set of sensors distributed in a way adapted to this house. These systems require installing numerous dedicated sensors, such as door or window contact sensors, actimetric mattress sensors, pressure-sensitive floor sensors, laser beam or infrared presence detectors, usage detectors in the form of a counter on everyday pieces of equipments (coffeemaker), etc.
These systems are especially expensive to install, often needing considerable work to install them or entail the availability of numerous power supply access points. Furthermore, some detectors used in these systems are often lacking in reliability since disturbances occur in the surveilled environment that are associated with the presence of persons other than the person to be tracked, the presence of pets, or simply disturbances associated with air currents or rays of sunlight temporarily heating a part of the house.
These systems can further cause in the person being tracked the unpleasant feeling of being “surveilled” due to the visible omnipresence of the means of detection, which often forms a major obstacle to installing such systems.